Pages

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Social media is helping to save libraries. But can it be a continuing trend?

The Mayor of NYC has signed a law that requires the Department of Education to hand out library card applications. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Like the idea, don't like that it is an actual law.

Eating and reading have always been fun activities to pair. The Baltimore County library system is taking that partnership to a new level to combat "food deserts." You can order groceries through the library and they will be delivered the next day.

One word of advice, type in the whole address or you may get a false positive. Don't cheat and type in starbucks.com when you mean www.starbucks.com. This reference site is not always a fan of redirects.

Unnecessary fact: I like typing in random sites (or words) when I'm bored.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

SUMMARY: [From Amazon.com] A traumatized teen mother magically escapes to her own personal heaven in this daring and deeply moving fantasy. The characters, setting, much of the action, and even the very words of the title are taken from the Grimm Brothers' "Snow-White and Rose-Red," a sweet story of contrasting sisters who live deep in the forest and whose innocent hearts are filled with compassion for a lonely bear and an endangered dwarf. In the novel, Liga's daughters—one born of incest, the other of gang rape—first flourish in Liga's safe world. But encounters with magical bears and the crusty dwarf challenge them to see a world beyond their mother's secure dreamscape. Eventually the younger one, Urdda, and subsequently her sister and Liga are drawn back into the real world in which cruelty, hurt, and prejudice abound. But it is also only there that they can experience the range of human emotion, develop deep relationships, and discover who they truly are. The opening chapters vividly portray the emotional experience of a boy's first sexual encounter, mind-numbing abuse by Liga's father, and a violent gang rape. It's heavy fare even for sophisticated readers, but the author hits all the right notes, giving voice to both the joys and terrors that sexual experience can bestow without saying more than readers need to know to be fully with the characters. While the story explores what it means to be human, it is at its heart an incisive exploration of the uses and limitations of dissociation as a coping mechanism. Beautifully written and surprising, this is a novel not to be missed.

THOUGHTS: I did not like this book - and the more we talked about it in book club, the more I grew to dislike it. Langan's writing is fine, her visualizations are actually beautiful to read, and the characters have depth and personality, but the plot is horrid. I could not get into the story and, even when did, I didn't want to be there. For me the writing and the imagery could not redeem the plot. I have a hard time understanding why the author had to make Liga's life so difficult. I'm all for characters going through hardship in stories, but it almost felt like Langan did not like her supposed main character. If anything, the sisters were what brought this book to life.

I don't know, maybe I just I didn't get it - but this book felt like an excuse to write a final revenge scene that seemed overplayed and unnecessary.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

This month's collection of books is all about food and food culture. You can blame NPR; I was listening to an Intelligence Squared Debate about organic food and marketing hype when I had to come up with a topic. Be forewarned, some of these books will make you hungry. Some of these books make also make you never want to eat again.

In his oft-cited work, Pollan delves into where our food comes from. He explores mass agriculture from the conventional and organic side, hunting and gathering, and how we interact with food in our culture. Written in an easy to read narrative form, Pollan breaks down everything from a McDonald's hamburger to how we've lost touch with our meals. I read this for my bookclub and it was fantastic. You may, however, swear off corn for awhile.

This is a tie-in guide to the movie of the same title. Food, Inc. also follows the trend of books and articles coming out that seem to want to scare people to death about how awful food production in the U.S. has become. The book is comprised of a series of essays by experts and ponders of American food industry and culture.

This is a book was written by a favorite blogger (Tea and Cookies) of mine. If her writing in this text is anything like her blog, you're in for a good time. This book chronicles Weaver's journey into the world of meat after being raised in a vegetarian household. She runs into a lot of questions and moments to ponder along the way.

I cook a lot. I love to try new recipes - which is good because I cannot afford to eat out every meal. In this book, Erway discovers the joy that can come from staying in and preparing food for yourself. The Art of Eating In is a blend of memoir and cookbook. Sometimes the best stories are the ones that are accompanied by a meal.

Maisto reminisces about what is like to combine two foodie tastes through her courtship and marriage. Their meals are not just food, but a stage for their coming together as two people. It may sound sappy, but the second I found out about this book, I put it on my TBR list. Also, how cute is that cover?

This one is also on my TBR list. I cannot ignore a book when their are carbs in the title. Anyway. Schenone discusses the family and the immigrant experience from the viewpoint of food. What recipes due we bring with us, save, and pass on. Every culture has it's foods, and this book seems delicious.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

In 32 days, I will graduate with my Masters in Library Science. If I want to scare myself, I can view my countdown as so:

11 days until my semester long project is due. I have the following components to finalize:

Main Powerpoint Presentation

Poster

Survey

11 days until my class presentation on said project

11 days until paper also on said project

18 days until take-home final is due

I'm not worried about the semester long project or presentation. The first is close to being done and the second I can bang out in a hour. Procrastination has been my nemesis when it comes to the paper. I know it won't be too hard, I just seem to have acquired senioritis when it comes to actually sitting down to write. Luckily, the take-home final won't be released until the first 3 things are due. Too bad I have to work on it while I'm also crazy busy at work. Timing is evil.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

There are a ton of kids books in existence. I read a bunch of them last summer, but that doesn't even begin to delve into the unseen iceberg bottom that is Children's Literature. People can and do obtain masters level degrees in children's lit.

I'm guessing that one of those students is the brain behind CLWG: Children's Lierature Web Guide. This website is a nice portal to all things web related to children's and young adult reading material. As an introduction, CLWG:

"The Children's Literature Web Guide is an attempt to gather together and categorize the growing number of Internet resources related to books for Children and Young Adults. Much of the information that you can find through these pages is provided by others: fans, schools, libraries, and commercial enterprises involved in the book world."

TITLE: An Echo in the BoneAUTHOR: Diana GabaldonSTARTED: February 26, 2010FINISHED: April 1, 2010PAGES: 822GENRE: Fiction

FIRST SENTENCE: The body is amazingly plastic.

SUMMARY: [From Amazon.com] Jamie Fraser, former Jacobite and reluctant rebel, is already certain of three things about the American rebellion: The Americans will win, fighting on the side of victory is no guarantee of survival, and he’d rather die than have to face his illegitimate son–a young lieutenant in the British army–across the barrel of a gun.

Claire Randall knows that the Americans will win, too, but not what the ultimate price may be. That price won’t include Jamie’s life or his happiness, though–not if she has anything to say about it.

Meanwhile, in the relative safety of the twentieth century, Jamie and Claire’s daughter, Brianna, and her husband, Roger MacKenzie, have resettled in a historic Scottish home where, across a chasm of two centuries, the unfolding drama of Brianna’s parents’ story comes to life through Claire’s letters. The fragile pages reveal Claire’s love for battle-scarred Jamie Fraser and their flight from North Carolina to the high seas, where they encounter privateers and ocean battles–as Brianna and Roger search for clues not only to Claire’s fate but to their own. Because the future of the MacKenzie family in the Highlands is mysteriously, irrevocably, and intimately entwined with life and death in war-torn colonial America.

THOUGHTS: This is the best book I've read in the Outlander series in a long time. Granted, I love ALL the books in the series, but this one was particularly good. While it does not have the exact same perfectness that is Outlander itself, An Echo in the Bone delivered a hearty dose of plain ol' good comfort reading. Maybe it was the setting, maybe it was the characters, maybe it was the writing or a combination there of, whatever it was Gabaldon kept me insanely happy for the whole book.

My mom tends to dislike these books because, as she puts it, "Claire and Jaime are always running into drama." But you know what, that's why it works for me. There is something intensely visceral about this series that speaks to me. The last few books in the series have been "good," but Echo adds something new to the mix. For the first time that I can recall, Gabaldon allows characters other than Claire to first-person narrate. I loved it. Young Ian may just be my new favorite fictional character. He is strong, intellectual, and just a little bit wild - and it makes me want to know him. By allowing the reader to get into other character's mind, the series has taken on a new richness and completeness that I never knew was missing. I will be sorely disappointed if Gabaldon removes that facet from future books in this series.

Also, there was a dark intensity to this book that created a sense of foreboding (and made me upset when the book was over because, gosh darnit, I wasn't ready for it to end). Part of me feels that is because the American Revolution is heavily (HEAVILY) influential to the plot. I'm and Am. Rev. nut - books set in that time make me bouncy and giddy. Gabaldon gets it right - the sounds, the smells, the chaos - woot woot. She also manages to throw in the big players (Benedict Arnold, FTW!) without it seeming forced or unnecessary. I will say I am waiting for the pages where Claire and/or Jamie run into George Washington. I just know it's going to happen and I can't wait to see it.

Gabaldon's writing is, as always, rich and vibrant in its detailed description and emotion. More than once I cringed at the medical images and sighed at the environmental vistas. Gabaldon has the ability to transport the reader to both the location and time of her choosing. Her writing, particular is this book, is magical. It is nuanced, emotional, and glues you to the page.

I could go on and be even more fan girly in this review, but I shant. Just know that if you've given up on the series or have been plodding through for whatever reason, Echo in the Bone will be a breath of fresh air. I already love the books, but this one was just delicious.

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

FIRST SENTENCE: There were crimson roses on the bench; they looked like splashes of blood.

SUMMARY: [From amazon.com] Mystery novelist Harriet Vane knew all about poisons, and when her fiancee died in the manner prescribed in one of her books, a jury of her peers had a hangman's noose in mind. But Lord Peter Wimsey was determined to find her innocent -- as determined as he was to make her his wife.

THOUGHTS: I don't think I "do" mystery. Aside from a tiny side snippet in this book, there was nothing about Sayers' story that called to me. I could have cared less about the characters, "who dun it," or even the era the book is set in. I just didn't care at all about anything in this story. Part of me wonders if I would have liked the book more if I had read the others that came before it in the series, but I highly doubt it. I likes book with mystery in them, but apparently I'm not a huge fan of the mystery genre.